" ...I'm really into cold greenhouses on my side, I find it really exciting. My mini indoor greenhouse is better set up than last year for my seedlings, I'm in there.

So I've been keeping track of grocery costs since we returned from Argentina and thinking about home economics (we exchange our time for money with which we buy things we don't have time to produce ourselves), and I find thinking about household finances fascinating.

Last year I worked six months out of 12 and had a better year than any previous year. I'm thinking about all that and how to do better more slowly.

I'm also reading a fascinating book on vertical gardening; it's a real productivity bomb for small spaces.

We sometimes (often) look for organic for ourselves first, for our health, then we think about soils, global warming, pollution and the vitality of food. We think simultaneously (or before or after) about local, permaculture, urban agriculture, which bring us back to the health of the planet but also and just as much (or even above all) to the health of humans, communities, our own which is so close to each other and which increases tenfold the lawnmowers, snowblowers and thousands of objects that we could undoubtedly share if we had the time to think about it by working less, better, running less to generate this income essential to the purchase of our lawnmowers and snowblowers. In the process we think about our consumption, our responsibility as consumers (and polluters) and we tell ourselves that we can do better, differently, with less. Recovery, recycling, bartering, food waste, zero waste, less oil. And thinking about all this, we rethink our speed, we think about slowing down, we rediscover domestic economics, our way of exchanging our time for money and then having to buy everything with practically no autonomy, we think about the slow movement, voluntary simplicity, the impact of stress in our lives and what we devote our time to, wondering if the best of ourselves really goes to those we love the most. We ask ourselves what we really want, we envy parts of lost culture, we want to relearn ancestral knowledge, without going back in time but doing things differently, in a new balance.

Simply because slowness is another speed, a super speed.

So sometimes, at this point, where I am, we start to think more and more about self-sufficiency. This idea of ​​increasing our freedom by depending less on the agri-food system, this resistance that unfolds in a movement of protection, preservation and restoration of what surrounds us. This way of voting several times a day.

The topics surrounding self-sufficiency are vast and numerous, but here are some reading references that were significant for me, fascinating and exciting:

• Market gardening :

The ecological garden , Yves Gagnon, Colloïdales editions

A fabulous book 30 years of gardening experience put to good use in this book which allows us to understand crop rotations, the vitality of food and above all, the constitution of a soil, the basis of the principles of permaculture. I have read many gardening books, but I have never understood so well how to understand and manage my soil, compost, green manures and crop rotations. Les jardins du portage is also a superb seed store where you can stock up. **Several other interesting works to his credit;

The Market Gardener , Jean-Martin Fortier, Ecosociété editions

Once again, a synthesis of an exhaustive experience of organic cultivation in small areas, with maximization of space (sometimes 4 different crops in one year on a square foot) and an application of permaculture principles coupled with a concern for profitability which has led to the development of certain particular cultivation techniques which extend the Quebec growing season by demonstrating to us the viability of small organic family farms.

The winter harvest handbook: Year Round Vegetable Production Using Deep-Organic Techniques and Unheated Greenhouses, Eliot Coleman, Chelsea Green Publis-hing

Fortier often refers to it, Eliot Coleman is the American specialist in the cold greenhouse, of "growing on the back of the calendar", producing vegetables without heating (except for a germination greenhouse) 11 months out of 12 in the year, in Maine. A work which still gives us the benefit of 30 years of experimentation, with precise sowing calendars and modified and explicit growth curves for winter crops, without forgetting a history of French market gardening, at a time when Paris was self-sufficient and even fed England with its vegetables produced under glass bells and in cold greenhouses. **All his works are interesting, it goes without saying, but not translated into French to my knowledge;

• Homestead :

Homesteading originated from Roosevelt's Homestead Act, a political effort to populate distant American lands: build your house, live there self-sufficiently for 5 years and we'll give you the land (it's very schematic but that was basically the idea, which was also applied in some parts of Canada).

For practical reasons (I live in the city) I became interested in small-scale homesteading: applying permaculture principles to an area of ​​1 acre (or more) allows you to cultivate, fertilize your soil, produce your compost, your mulch, in short, to get as close as possible to a balanced living environment in a closed circle.

There are several American books on small-scale homesteading, and I really liked them:

One Acre Homestead: Planning for self-sufficiency and financial independence , Sara Simmons McDonald

In this book, the author shares her approach, her trial and error, reflects on home-teaching and takes a very interesting look at domestic economics, logically linking self-sufficiency and financial independence. A very interesting reflection on the way we choose to manage our time, to exchange it for money with which we must then buy what we did not have time to make ourselves.

• Urban agriculture :

There are many books on urban agriculture, but I suggest this book, which deals with your garden but takes the thinking further, to the heart of the question of self-sufficiency in our community, of eating locally. A food activist who squats vacant municipal lots, the edges of parks, private land, to plant vegetables clandestinely:

Food Not Lawns: How to Turn Your Yard into a Garden and Your Neighborhood into a Community, Heather Jo Flores

• Resource management and organization :

Natural Kitchen, Your Guide to the Sustainable Food Revolution, Deborah Eden Tull

After 7 years of living and working in the kitchen and gardens of a Zen monastery, various experiences of permaculture and agriculture in all kinds of environments and all over the United States, the author returns to Los Angeles and must use her knowledge within her community and earn a living. She will become a sustainability coach and write this book. From the use of solar energy in cooking to zero waste, to a deep reflection on the meaning of things, including permaculture, the ecological and waste-free organization of the kitchen, this book takes us on a surprising and stimulating journey, also presenting us with other paths than her own that allow us to rethink our own... Naturally.

Reflection on the questions of food and agriculture….

To strengthen determination, broaden thinking or renew motivation, I suggest two readings:

Consumed: Sustainable Food for a Finite Planet, Sarah Elton

How will we feed the world's population in 2050? The author meets families from all over the world, traces through real-life portraits the history of cultural changes brought about by industrial agriculture, and presents superb examples of organic and local farming resistance.

Bringing It to the Table : On Farming and Food, Wendell Berry

A collection of essays written from the 1970s to the 2000s, which reflect so pertinently, brilliantly, on the impacts of industrial agriculture, which we seem to have just become interested in in the last decade. Yes, the impoverishment of the soil, but not only that: the loss of a sense of community, the real productive capacity of a territory, livestock chosen by the land and not the other way around, the change brought about by the tractor and several examples of successes of traditional practices on a small scale.

I can't say it enough, what an important thought this is, what a fascinating and enlightening read. I came to it through Natural Kitchen, and when I opened the ecological garden W. Berry was mentioned in the epigraph... If I wanted to make an easy pun I would say a permareading.

Happy reading!

Made from Scratch : Discovering the Pleasures of a Handmade Life, Jenna Woginrich